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evilkitten3 · 1 year

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so in the anime version of the namek saga, there was a bit where ginyu stole bulma's body, right?

well... idea:

dark comedy au where bulma never gets it back and is stuck as a frog. but this isn't about that– it's about ginyu, who somehow no one noticed doing this, and is now stuck pretending to be bulma or getting insta-murdered by one of bulma's friends. except he has no fucking clue how to do any of what bulma does

so frog!bulma manages to communicate with him and convinces him to swap with her again in exchange for her keeping her friends from insta-murdering him once they catch on. aware that she might be playing him but also very aware that his other choice is death-by-steadily-increasing-number-of-super-saiyans, ginyu agrees

at which point they realize that bulma simply does not have enough ki for ginyu to use his body swap technique. and they can't risk using the dragon balls until after the androids are stopped. so they're stuck like this. unfortunately, they have this discussion within earshot of piccolo, who gets the lovely honor of being the only person in the present timeline aware that A) the kid from the future is the son of vegeta and bulma, and B) there is a non-zero chance that the bulma involved in said future kid's conception was actually ginyu

anyway i can't decide if it would be funnier for ginyu to pull off a perfect bulma while she insists she would never act like that, or for ginyu to be unbelievably bad at acting like bulma, only for extremely contrived coincidences keeping anyone from noticing. or if maybe yamcha starts getting suspicious and goku assumes he's jealous bc he can sense something between bulma and vegeta, who've been spending a lot of time together ("the woman calls herself a genius but the gravity room keeps fucking breaking" "uhhhhh it's a new product. i know what i'm doing. stop being such a little b–" *suddenly remembers that he has absolutely no way of defending himself* "badman. stop being such a little badman")

funniest idea: somehow no one notices until frieza gets resurrected in super, at which point frieza instantly figures out that it's ginyu based on something really small and absurd.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #it's almost two in the morning i should not be allowed to stay up this late or this nonsense happens #also yes i'm aware that there are some sketchy implications that go into this but it's db so. i guess ignore them like canon does #future trunks coming back in super: my mom is dead!#vegeta who just found out a few months ago that 'bulma' was ginyu the whole time: i have some deeply unpleasant news for you #future trunks: i mean ok but- hey did younger me just call that frog mom #ginyu (in frog form bc he was forced to swap back via dragon balls): ribbit #bulma: i mean. he had a very good argument. and he cares about trunks a lot #vegeta: my advice is to never learn anything new ever. if someone tries to tell you something kill them instantly #future trunks: ....good to see you again too dad

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ashleybenlove · 5 hours

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Something I've been thinking about re the Dragon Rider OT6 is like, their moms.

There's four of them, five if you count Valka.

Real Council of Moms/Mothers-In-Laws you got there.

(Stoick and Gobber probably get looped in, idk)

#ashleybenlove posts #Hiccup and the Gang #ot6: we’re fast we’re fearless and we ride dragons #ot6: where hiccup goes we go #how to train your dragon #thinking about that show on NBC in 2020 that got cancelled after 1 season called Council of Dads #it was really good #it has nothing to do with this except similarity of names

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vaguely-concerned · 1 year

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everybody gangsta until captain dennison starts crying

#;______; world's best captain mug that broke the camel's back and also my heart #*through a haze of tears* courier's call is extremely good actually please go listen to it #courier's call #skyjacks #im emotionally devastated fhsdakfjsa #I am definitely for sure not sure he's doing the right thing and the mix of anger and betrayal and grief and worry that brought up.....#I worry for my dad I mean former captain and for his moral character and also his magical cat #y'know. he matters to me. he's been such a reasonable and kind authority figure in the face of all kinds of crazy #which is not a type of adult I had around me a lot as a kid lol #(I did start a running tally of all the times dennison is just sitting there with his head in his hands and it's getting up there fhdsjka #former redfeather dragon defeated by the concept of fun money presented to him boldly at seven in the morning)#I should do a proper rec post for both skyjacks proper and courier's call some of these days shouldn't I

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greenmeanqueen · 2 years

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I just saw a comment saying "I see a noble soul in Daemon" under a picture of the cut scene where he hugs his daughters... I can't wait till they watch him order the murder of an innocent child

thank you for your ask… now, dae/mon is a lot of things, but i’m not so sure that i’d say “noble” is one of them.

#also him holding both rhaena and baela doesn’t change that he’s been neglecting rhaena due to her dragonless-ness #wouldn’t call him a very good dad atm #and he’s already murdered rhea royce but i guess we can ‘excuse’ that bc she didn’t kiss his feet #bs #tbf i don’t know how the GA will respond to blood and cheese #but i have a sinking feeling that many won’t fault him #or consider it justified which it was NOT #anti daemon targaryen #anti targ stans #anti targaryen #house of the dragon spoilers #ask a gal

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opens-up-4-nobody · 1 year

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...

#oh god. now that i have polls u have no idea how hard it is to resist making: what should i draw polls #bc i have so many things i wanna draw constantly and im terrible at making choices #bc i wanna draw the process of a dragon embryo growing in an egg #i wanna draw something pajama sam related. i have so so so many narut0 things i wanna draw #and bc im a lil crazy everything also has to fit in with my prompt book bc ive had it for like 3 years and havent completed them all yet #also everytime someone reblogs my j3rma scribbles im like. more j3rma. i wanna draw the meat grinder rant lmao #bc i was so proud of that face lol. hes so hard to draw.#ugh but narut0 world building. ugh but practicing drawing things im bad at. ugh but im sitting in the lab right now and need to get to work #sigh... too much. too many choices. and my body is sore idk y. i mean. prob from doing too much but whatever #i woke up at 5 and now im wired #also my dad called me this morning and its so funny talking to him bc our brains work in v similar ways #so im like. stop. y r u me? its bc hes also an anxious freak haha hes a good dad tho #just cursed with the genes that made me the unwell mess that i am. ah well we cant have it all #unrelated #lol me at ppl with j3rma icons: let me feed u scribbles #ay my brain is so scattered lmao

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thewolvesandtheirbard · 1 year

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Beware the Accursed She Wolf, for she was born under the Black Sun.

(A Witcher!Deidre Ademeyn mood board because she definitely deserved better from the world).

#Plus she’d be a badass Witcher #I can hear it in the ballads now!#“The Dragon’s Daughter” they’d call her #Eskel would’ve been a good dad if the past were kinder #Give them both another chance!#the witcher #witcher eskel #school of the wolf #Deidre ademeyn

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shyfrog-says · 11 months

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When one character is in danger and another is helpless to save them, and they call out, first with a professional or impersonal name/title, and then again with more desperation, this time with a more intimate or personal name or title.

Good shit.

#fav examples are the Dragon Prince with Callum calling out for ''King Harrow'' and then cryong out ''Dad''#especially heartbreaking because that's the first time he calls him dad #and then at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 when Joker is in the escape pod and the Collector ship is attack and he calls out ''Commander''#and then he screams ''Shepard!!'' before the escape pod launches #good shit

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todayisafridaynight · 1 year

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I completely agree! I'm glad you don't mind at least, but of course, it's totally natural to be predisposed to liking what you end up liking. I think that's gonna happen no matter what and it's not something that ever needs to be suppressed. There are very obvious patterns in my favorite characters and pairings for a reason lol

Same! I'm very selective as well, so a fic that stands out that much is always gonna be one for the books. I'm thrilled the language barrier didn't get in the way. The scene at the park GETS ME like the way Jo just knows that it's gonna eat away at Masato and does his best to accommodate instead of dragging him straight home like bro😭😭

I've always wanted to know what differs in Jo's and Arakawa's "parenting styles" that made Masato have such a clear "favorite," and maybe it's things like that that build up. ALSO AGREE on the drama theme in Confession, there's a bit of that in Y7 as-is so it was a great choice to hone in on and highlight it.

I knew you'd say that haha, but I think my subconscious simply understands that if I'd trust anyone with AraSawa, it's you. Also no worries, I genuinely wasn't even expecting a reply until you got home, godspeed lol--super excited to see what you come up with, and I hope you enjoyed your trip + the sushi!

Of course! Nothing wrong with liking what you end up liking. I only worry about it so I don't miss out on good things just because I'm not familiar with it or it's something new- trying to be open minded and ready to try different things and all :]

YEAHYEAH it especially felt great since like. Jo seeing Masato cry about not being able to walk was of course what got him back into his life, so it was nice to loop back to that and instead of Jo not being able to do anything like the first time, he go to be there for him now ;;

On the topic of parenting styles though, I'm genuinely surprised I haven't let slip any of my personal notes about how they parent Masato- or at least how I've speculated they parent him (of course we see how Masumi takes care of him more, so the 'speculation' part more so lies on Jo's end since obviously we didn't get to see it as explicitly). I actually thought of writing up a post about their parenting styles, but I thought I'd be repeating a lot of points we went over uu;;

Even if I might not ever write a fic, I'm glad that I've gotten the mark of approval for AraSawa interpretations (I guess my silly comics are the closest to written fics huh lmao)!

#snap chats #i'm genuinely surprised i havent rambled about parenting styles.....#very evident i have. Parental Issues so of course parenting styles and parenting in general is a very Interesting topic to me #ESPECIALLY when my last course was on childhood development and how parenting affects a child's outcome #literally was is wrong with me this is the perfect time to write that parenting style post..... headass...#moving on tho my mall trip went great ! if you happened to read my tags on my posts vaejlv #the sushi i got was something called a Golden Dragon Roll- it had salmon with mango on top and some kind of spicy saucy #very strange sounding i know and that's why i got it. because What The Fuck.#it was actually p good ! but im also not a particularly picky eater so im happy with a lot of things i eat #p funny since i was super picky as a kid but i think thats just cause i didnt like my mom so by extension anything she gave me i hated #prob didnt help my dad did most of the cooking... he was the only one who did any cooking actually....#ENOUGH of my parent issues i have MOVED ON from that subject of the tag ramble #i guess thats the end of the tag ramble now actually. oops <:}#just gotta flip a coin on whether i want to draw or watch one of those movies rn... we'll see what i decided in like three hours ig lmao

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volinare · 1 year

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All the stuffies I have

#the bear is the only one I have left from my actual childhood #All the rest got lost in moves or I gave them to my little siblings #I had a velvet rabbit from my mom.... another rabbit #A duck. A small cat that my memaw made from a pattern on the back of a stuffing back (saddest about that one)#A sheep thats like those old fashioned bottle holders your apparently not supposed to use (i dont think they ever actually used it to hold #my bottles)#and a build a bear rabbit that my dad got for me when my parents sent me to visit my cusins for a week while getting divorced #BUT these are the ones I have now! plus a whole bunch of crocheted #Not pictured: a bunch of mini crochet nightmare before christmas dolls my grandma made #I took a picture with them in it but they arnt showing up #zero (who i keep wanting to call pluto for some fucking reason) is in my car #The bear my dad gave me. idk when. when i was like 7 or so? i think?#the fish my dad gave me.... I think for my 13th? it may have been my 14th or 15th.#The triceratops my ex got for himself but i asked him if i could have it when we broke up and he said 'sure'#the penguin was when my grandma first started her crocheting endeavors and messed up the pattern #it was originally for my sister but she was really little and it scared her so i adopted him #his name is herbert (the rest dont really have names... whoops)#The small dinosaur also plays music and like sways a little when you wind it up. i got it at good will abecause it fucking called to me #like it was not an option to not buy that little fucker #The dragon is weighted and my ex got it for me because he had a dragon by the same company and one of our alters was like. obsessed with it #and the the non-crocheted penguin i got today. from a sort of fuck buddy to fwb situation #I was giving him my old phone because his broke so i think he felt bad? and so he gave me the penguin #It like. freaked me out a little #and i guess he could tell because he was like ' hes cute. he's a nice guy'#and thats my entire stuffed animal history #edit: oh i guess the picture did have my night mare before christmas ones. arnt they cool!!! she makes a lot of little dolls like this.

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pokidragon · 2 years

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If they continue debasing the elven religion in DA Dreadwolf with the Evanuris all being ultra powerful mages instead of actual gods, they better make it cannon that Andraste was a mage and the Maker was literally just some random ass spirit of faith or something. I’d be very disappointed in the creators if they debunked the elven polytheistic religion just to leave the Christianity stand in as legit with a “true” god.

Considering the veil is most likely coming down in this game and all the stakes are gonna be elevated, I hope we get some kind of answer there to balance out their treatment of these belief systems

#dragon age #dragon age dreadwolf #I’m not calling it dad #nope #my expectations are low but I have some hope #hopefully there’ll at least be good cc

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ms-demeanor · 7 months

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Why reblog machine-generated art?

When I was ten years old I took a photography class where we developed black and white photos by projecting light on papers bathed in chemicals. If we wanted to change something in the image, we had to go through a gradual, arduous process called dodging and burning.

When I was fifteen years old I used photoshop for the first time, and I remember clicking on the clone tool or the blur tool and feeling like I was cheating.

When I was twenty eight I got my first smartphone. The phone could edit photos. A few taps with my thumb were enough to apply filters and change contrast and even spot correct. I was holding in my hand something more powerful than the huge light machines I'd first used to edit images.

When I was thirty six, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo class that used Lightroom Classic and again, it felt like cheating. It made me really understand how much the color profiles of popular web images I'd been seeing for years had been pumped and tweaked and layered with local edits to make something that, to my eyes, didn't much resemble photography. To me, photography is light on paper. It's what you capture in the lens. It's not automatic skin smoothing and a local filter to boost the sky. This reminded me a lot more of the photomanipulations my friend used to make on deviantart; layered things with unnatural colors that put wings on buildings or turned an eye into a swimming pool. It didn't remake the images to that extent, obviously, but it tipped into the uncanny valley. More real than real, more saturated more sharp and more present than the actual world my lens saw. And that was before I found the AI assisted filters and the tool that would identify the whole sky for you, picking pieces of it out from between leaves.

You know, it's funny, when people talk about artists who might lose their jobs to AI they don't talk about the people who have already had to move on from their photo editing work because of technology. You used to be able to get paid for basic photo manipulation, you know? If you were quick with a lasso or skilled with masks you could get a pretty decent chunk of change by pulling subjects out of backgrounds for family holiday cards or isolating the pies on the menu for a mom and pop. Not a lot, but enough to help. But, of course, you can just do that on your phone now. There's no need to pay a human for it, even if they might do a better job or be more considerate toward the aesthetic of an image.

And they certainly don't talk about all the development labs that went away, or the way that you could have trained to be a studio photographer if you wanted to take good photos of your family to hang on the walls and that digital photography allowed in a parade of amateurs who can make dozens of iterations of the same bad photo until they hit on a good one by sheer volume and luck; if you want to be a good photographer everyone can do that why didn't you train for it and spend a long time taking photos on film and being okay with bad photography don't you know that digital photography drove thousands of people out of their jobs.

My dad told me that he plays with AI the other day. He hosts a movie podcast and he puts up thumbnails for the downloads. In the past, he'd just take a screengrab from the film. Now he tells the Bing AI to make him little vignettes. A cowboy running away from a rhino, a dragon arm-wrestling a teddy bear. That kind of thing. Usually based on a joke that was made on the show, or about the subject of the film and an interest of the guest.

People talk about "well AI art doesn't allow people to create things, people were already able to create things, if they wanted to create things they should learn to create things." Not everyone wants to make good art that's creative. Even fewer people want to put the effort into making bad art for something that they aren't passionate about. Some people want filler to go on the cover of their youtube video. My dad isn't going to learn to draw, and as the person who he used to ask to photoshop him as Ant-Man because he certainly couldn't pay anyone for that kind of thing, I think this is a great use case for AI art. This senior citizen isn't going to start cartooning and at two recordings a week with a one-day editing turnaround he doesn't even really have the time for something like a Fiverr commission. This is a great use of AI art, actually.

I also know an artist who is going Hog Fucking Wild creating AI art of their blorbos. They're genuinely an incredibly talented artist who happens to want to see their niche interest represented visually without having to draw it all themself. They're posting the funny and good results to a small circle of mutuals on socials with clear information about the source of the images; they aren't trying to sell any of the images, they're basically using them as inserts for custom memes. Who is harmed by this person saying "i would like to see my blorbo lasciviously eating an ice cream cone in the is this a pigeon meme"?

The way I use machine-generated art, as an artist, is to proof things. Can I get an explosion to look like this. What would a wall of dead computer monitors look like. Would a ballerina leaping over the grand canyon look cool? Sometimes I use AI art to generate copyright free objects that I can snip for a collage. A lot of the time I use it to generate ideas. I start naming random things and seeing what it shows me and I start getting inspired. I can ask CrAIon for pose reference, I can ask it to show me the interior of spaces from a specific angle.

I profoundly dislike the antipathy that tumblr has for AI art. I understand if people don't want their art used in training pools. I understand if people don't want AI trained on their art to mimic their style. You should absolutely use those tools that poison datasets if you don't want your art included in AI training. I think that's an incredibly appropriate action to take as an artist who doesn't want AI learning from your work.

However I'm pretty fucking aggressively opposed to copyright and most of the "solid" arguments against AI art come down to "the AIs viewed and learned from people's copyrighted artwork and therefore AI is theft rather than fair use" and that's a losing argument for me. In. Like. A lot of ways. Primarily because it is saying that not only is copying someone's art theft, it is saying that looking at and learning from someone's art can be defined as theft rather than fair use.

Also because it's just patently untrue.

But that doesn't really answer your question. Why reblog machine-generated art? Because I liked that piece of art.

It was made by a machine that had looked at billions of images - some copyrighted, some not, some new, some old, some interesting, many boring - and guided by a human and I liked it. It was pretty. It communicated something to me. I looked at an image a machine made - an artificial picture, a total construct, something with no intrinsic meaning - and I felt a sense of quiet and loss and nostalgia. I looked at a collection of automatically arranged pixels and tasted salt and smelled the humidity in the air.

I liked it.

I don't think that all AI art is ugly. I don't think that AI art is all soulless (i actually think that 'having soul' is a bizarre descriptor for art and that lacking soul is an equally bizarre criticism). I don't think that AI art is bad for artists. I think the problem that people have with AI art is capitalism and I don't think that's a problem that can really be laid at the feet of people curating an aesthetic AI art blog on tumblr.

Machine learning isn't the fucking problem the problem is massive corporations have been trying hard not to pay artists for as long as massive corporations have existed (isn't that a b-plot in the shape of water? the neighbor who draws ads gets pushed out of his job by product photography? did you know that as recently as ten years ago NewEgg had in-house photographers who would take pictures of the products so users wouldn't have to rely on the manufacturer photos? I want you to guess what killed that job and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't AI)

Am I putting a human out of a job because I reblogged an AI-generated "photo" of curtains waving in the pale green waters of an imaginary beach? Who would have taken this photo of a place that doesn't exist? Who would have painted this hypersurrealistic image? What meaning would it have had if they had painted it or would it have just been for the aesthetic? Would someone have paid for it or would it be like so many of the things that artists on this site have spent dozens of hours on only to get no attention or value for their work?

My worst ratio of hours to notes is an 8-page hand-drawn detailed ink comic about getting assaulted at a concert and the complicated feelings that evoked that took me weeks of daily drawing after work with something like 54 notes after 8 years; should I be offended if something generated from a prompt has more notes than me? What does that actually get the blogger? Clout? I believe someone said that popularity on tumblr gets you one thing and that is yelled at.

What do you get out of this? Are you helping artists right now? You're helping me, and I'm an artist. I've wanted to unload this opinion for a while because I'm sick of the argument that all Real Artists think AI is bullshit. I'm a Real Artist. I've been paid for Real Art. I've been commissioned as an artist.

And I find a hell of a lot of AI art a lot more interesting than I find human-generated corporate art or Thomas Kincaid (but then, I repeat myself).

There are plenty of people who don't like AI art and don't want to interact with it. I am not one of those people. I thought the gay sex cats were funny and looked good and that shitposting is the ideal use of a machine image generation: to make uncopyrightable images to laugh at.

I think that tumblr has decided to take a principled stand against something that most people making the argument don't understand. I think tumblr's loathing for AI has, generally speaking, thrown weight behind a bunch of ideas that I think are going to be incredibly harmful *to artists specifically* in the long run.

Anyway. If you hate AI art and you don't want to interact with people who interact with it, block me.

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lizzobetumblin · 2 months

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Melissa hated her feelings.

She buried them in a chest in the 5th grade (along with her ability to express them). Other peoples' feelings on the other hand was her forte. She could process, decipher and regurgitate other peoples emotions effortlessly. This gift could’ve taken her through college, all the way to a degree in psychology. Distinguished Dr. Jefferson with a PhD and a cozy office and impressive roster of high-profile, weallthy clients was a shiny idea. Fate would have a different hand for Melissa her talents were exhausted on mediating family fights, friend group drama, and charming her way out of confronting her own feelings.

“Feelings.” Even saying it out loud to herself seemed silly. Something reserved for ‘cry babies’ and water signs. Typical Sunday nights started tame, reading or writing fan-fiction and drinking cranapple juice. And then like clock work her father would yell her name,

‘MELISSA!!!’ Emotionless, she’d get up dust off her Winnie the Pooh shorts and make her way downstairs. On the long walk down the hall to the stairs leading to the living room brawl, she’d go through her check list:

1.) Don’t cry.

2.) Stay neutral; Deescalate

3.)Don’t take anything personal. This isn’t about you

She padded down the carpeted stairs in her old soft socks to see her mother tightlipped and tear streaked thinking,

‘she broke rule number 1’. Her father, Michael was proud and angry, his big belly filled with self righteousness. She knew he would be unyielding in his resolve and at this point her only option was to deescalate.

‘Rule number 2’. Then her sister the water sign and calamity for the evening sat on the floor nearly fetal, face red and raw with emotion.

‘Its not your fault’ Melissa wanted to say ‘You just didn’t follow the rules… you’re loved.’ But she couldn’t say that because she’d be breaking rule number 3. It wasn’t about how Melissa felt. Even though she felt like screaming,

“VANESSA, YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. DAD—YOU JUST HAVE PENT UP ANGER BECAUSE YOU GREW UP IN THE HOOD OF DETROIT AS A BLACK MAN IN THE 60s AND 70s. YOU NEED A HEALTHY OUTLET LIKE.. I DONT KNOW… THERAPY?!?!?! THIS IS A WASTE OF ALL OF OUR TIME. I LITERALLY JUST WROTE THE BEST SAILOR SATURN x CHIBI USA FANFICTION EVER AND THIS IS KILLING MY VIBE!”

Instead, she decide to hear every one out. She decided to help. To calm her dragon of a father down. To be a translator for her emotional sister. To not take it personal. To stay neutral. To not cry.

9 years later, at her fathers funeral she still never broke the rules. She played her flute and spoke at his memorial. She was present for her mother because it wasn’t about her. When other peoples' emotions bubbled up she stayed neutral. She sat through both services and she did not cry. It wasn’t until she excused herself to make a phone call outside did she collapse onto the stairs of the funeral home and weep alone in the cold Detroit snow.

It’s okay to break the rules sometimes, she reminded herself. As long as no one else sees it.

Traumas began to compact on Melissa, as they do. Humans tend to collect traumas like pebbles on a long hike. We toss them into our backpacks and keep moving forward. Some hikers would falter, but Melissa was built for this. She’d carried the stones of her family’s traumas uphill for years. She was strong.

When men began to befriend and reject her, saying ‘you’re too good for me’ but not too good to make them feel good. She carried that.

When childhood friends began to cut off the strings of her heart, saying ‘We can’t be friends anymore’. She carried that.

When her family separated like dandelion seeds, it seemed like they’d never be together again. Melissa slept on so many couches, floors and car seats sometimes she didn’t know if she’d see them again.

She carried that.

Dying was never an option though sometimes she didn’t mind the thought of it. Peace and warmth were two things she’d desperately yearned and hadn’t felt fully since the womb. Then one night in the pitch black of the hot, sweaty, roach-infested studio in southeast Houston she slept in she wondered:

‘Why can’t I break the rules?’ She’d seen everyone else in her life break them like popsicle sticks. And she didn’t just want to break the rules, she wanted to break them boldly and loudly and annoyingly and honestly and sloppily like every one else gets to do. It was in that moment, tucked in a thin jacket inside of an 8-foot high instrument cubby in the inky darkness—it hit her.

‘Is my suffering for a high purpose? Or is my suffering trying to kill me?’

She cried.

She escalated.

She took it personal.

But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to scream in a microphone in a sea of shadowy faces. She drank whiskey and wove her pain into rock music.

‘Music is my boyfriend’ she declared. The only man that kept his baggage to hisself. And it healed her. It gave her voice reason and purpose.

The pebble-laden hike became lighter with time. The incline eventually evened out to flat, beautiful landscapes where the breeze finally met her back. She knew it wasn’t gonna be easy or sunshine but even the rain cleansed her and it was beautiful too.

Somewhere in the rain she decided rules were meant to be built and broken. Like trust and love and friendships and families. Because every thing deserves the opportunity to change and grow.

So... She broke rule number 1 on stage while singing a beautiful song. Dr. Jefferson (PhD) screamed for her to stop but she didn’t listen and the tears flowed like rivers of emotion down her cheeks.

Rule number 2 was broken when she grew older and saw the injustices of the world. Marching with hundreds in protest she realized not everything needs to be pacified.

And one day when she finally fell in love, she broke rule number 3. No matter how much training she’d done she couldn't help but take every thing her lover said and did personal. But it was ok. Because in all her resistance she realized breaking rules was her power.

Melissa began to fall for her feelings. Her feelings gave life purpose. They weren’t always logical, as feelings seldom are. They were sloppy and embarrassing and rude and so fucking uncomfortable. But they were hers. And they were real. And when she sat alone sipping wine, staring at the moon…They were the only ones still by her side. Ready to break the rules for her because they loved her.

And she finally loved them back.

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ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral · 18 days

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Ok, I don't really post here, but there's a Merlin AU idea that's been rattling around in my skull like it's a pinball machine and I need to get it out, so here we go:

Imagine an AU where Balinor doesn't die and banishes Kilgarrah before sneaking away so Uther doesn't catch him and can't put his newfound son in danger. Of course, both he and Merlin are heartbroken about having to be separated again after just finding each other, but they work out a way to keep in touch and occasionally meet in secret.

And this is all well and good, and everything in the show just kinda proceeds as normal up until about season 4, where we have the knights of the round table well-established in Camelot.

It'd make sense that after a few years of travelling around with Kilgarrah, Balinor would be pretty well-known and well-feared throughout all the five kingdoms as "that dragonlord who escaped the purge and now travels around on the back of a giant dragon", and people all over Albion are kinda terrified of the guy.

Rumors say that he never smiles, that he can kill a man in a split second without even utterring a spell, and can decimate kingdoms with the dragon under his total command. That makes for a formidable figure!

And then one day, Balinor is trying to sneak into Camelot to visit his son (he heard Merlin got hit by a dorocha and wants to make sure he's ok!), and the knights see him and freak out because holy shit that's one of the deadliest guys in Albion!

They're in a tense standoff, with Balinor threatening to call down the dragon on them if they don't let him through. The knights are all ready to give their lives to at least buy the people in the castle time to evacuate, when suddenly Merlin and Arthur make it to the standoff. Arthur immediately starts strategizing with his knights on how they're going to negociate with the sorcerer in an attempt to make sure that they aren't all slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Merlin just laughs and pushes through the rows of knights blocking Balinor's path to the castle. The knights, being very fond of Merlin and not wanting to see their kind little friend be brutally murdered by one of the most terrifying men in exsistence, are trying to grab Merlin and pull him back to safety or shouting at him to get back, but Merlin manages to avoid them as he walks up to Balinor.

For a horrifying moment, the knights and Arthur think that Merlin is about to sacrifice himself for them, but Merlin breaks into a huge grin, yells "Dad!", and runs right into Balinor's arms.

(Merlin and Balinor reason that now that Arthur's king, they might as well start easing him into some of Merlin's less shocking secrets)

And even more shockingly to the knights, Balinor hugs him back, asking Merlin all about how he's been doing, how are his studies under Gaius, etc etc.

And all of the knights just bluescreen. Because the math isn't mathing on this one. Hunith + Balinor = MERLIN?! Does not compute.

They're all pondering how could someone as joyful, friendly, and kind as Merlin be the spawn of a terrifying man like Balinor?? They just cannot comprehend it. The manservant who they all know and love came from this sorcerer who's name is synonymous with the threat of death and destruction??

They're all jolted back to reality however when Balinor asks Merlin if he wants to come back to Balinor's newly-renovated stronghold in the mountains (that's only accessable by riding a dragon) to learn more about one day becoming a dragonlord. And suddenly, the knight understand why Balinor's here. He wants to kidnap Merlin from them and twist him into a terrifying sorcerer to carry on Balinor's legacy!

It all basically dissolves into a long game of high-stakes tug-of-war between Balinor and the knights + Arthur, and Merlin's just enjoying spending time with his father and his friends.

Balinor will just casually crash one of their quests while riding Kilgarrah and "kidnap" Merlin while the knights fight to keep Merlin with them.

Balinor eventually gives Merlin Aithusa so he can get practice raising dragons, and the knights see it as some evil scheme to make Merlin betray Camelot and attack it from within, but damn it Merlin's already adopted the damn thing so now they're stuck with a baby dragon.

IDK if I'd ever write a fic about it since I'm pretty busy writing another fic rn, but I thought that it was a funny idea to throw out there!

PS: if anyone wants to read my current project, where I'm giving Sir Leon more anxiety with each chapter after a kinda-botched magic reveal on Merlin's part (and Merlin may or may not be an eldritch god), feel free to check it out here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54027337/chapters/136771564

Thank you all for sticking with my incoherent rambling! :D I hope you have a great day/night!

Also, please let me know if you guys wants to hear more of the ideas that pinball around in my head!

#bbc merlin #merlin #balinor #merlin bbc #arthur pendragon #merlin au #protective arthur #protective knights #merlin prompts

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